How to Turn a Bad Date into a Good One
by cinders44
Summary: Captain Swan AU based on the prompt: Person A is on a date with someone at a sports event when the kiss cam focuses on them. Their date ignores them so person B swoops in & kisses them instead & gives them their number afterwards. One week later person A calls.
1. Chapter 1

**So I saw this prompt on tumblr a few weeks ago and my brain, as it does with everything, turned it into a Captain Swan AU. The prompt was: Person _A is on a date with someone at a sports event when the kiss cam focuses on them. Their date ignores them so person B swoops in & kisses them instead & gives them their number afterwards. One week later person A calls. _I have a bit of a second part written out if anyone is interested in it. It wouldn't be long, just what happens the rest of the night. Thanks for reading!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time. Shocker, I know.**

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Emma had no idea how she got here.

Of course, rationally, she knew.

The guy who sold her her new dining room table, Walsh, asked her on a date and while she'd initially said no, all of her friends insisted she go. She'd been on what she referred to as a love-sabbatical since about 7 months before her son Henry was born, which was now about eight years ago. Her friends' suggestions that she put herself out there again grew less and less subtle with every day... and then her kid had joined their protests.

So, when the table was done a month ahead of schedule, and Walsh asked her out again, she'd said yes. What was the harm in one date? It couldn't be _that_ bad. She'd actually gotten kind of excited when Walsh told her that a client had given him tickets to what happened to be her favorite hockey team.

That kind-of excitement was extremely short lived and lasted only about thirty seconds into the date.

He showed up to the game in a suit, clearly having just got off work, and talking extremely rudely to whomever was on the other end of his call. He didn't get off the phone until they'd made it through the long line to get into the venue.

The second Emma mentioned having an eight-year-old son Walsh's obvious disappointment that she was a single mother made Emma want to punch him.

Then, he'd just made it worse by taking another phone call, a call that happened to be very clearly another woman, despite Walsh's half-hearted attempts to hide that fact.

If she hadn't known her friends would continue their pestering and say that it wasn't a real date and that she hadn't given Walsh a real chance, Emma would have left then and there. Instead, she just resolved to completely ignore her date and focus on the game instead. The plan would have worked out quite well, if it weren't for the man sitting on the other side of her.

Emma noticed him immediately when he took his seats about fifteen minutes after Emma and Walsh did. He was all kinds of tall, dark, and handsome. His raven black hair was artfully messy and his clear blue eyes took Emma's breath away for a moment. Due to their close proximity, Emma was able to quite clearly hear his conversation without it being considered eavesdropping.

"Liam, how the hell did you get these seats?" The man she was currently sharing an armrest with exclaimed. ( _Holy shit, does he have a British accent?_ She thought.)

As they settled into their seats, each with a beer in hand, his friend responded, "I believe I've already told you that Belle's dad has these season tickets, little brother."

"Younger brother!" This light-hearted correction was accompanied by a playful punch to the arm. "And you just said you had tickets, not _great_ tickets."

The man whose name must have been Liam chuckled. "Look at you, getting into hockey."

The younger brother huffed. "I'm simply appreciating the proximity of the seats to the game play."

From there, the conversation turned to discussing the more general points of the game. Apparently, the younger brother had never been to a game and needed some instruction.

Emma tried to work on controlling her physical reaction to the man who was decidedly not her date sitting next to her, while Walsh stayed on his phone the entire time, alternating between yelling at people for work calls, and trying (and failing) to discretely hide the fact that he was talking to other women while on a date.

Once she'd tuned her date out, Emma found herself marginally enjoying watching her favorite hockey team soundly winning the game, despite being on what could only be described as one of the worst dates of all time. Until the break between the first and second period. Her neighbor, or Prince-Eric-look-alike as she'd started referring to him as in her head, was talking to his friend on his other side about the game, and Emma was dreading actually having to talk to her date without the distraction of the game.

Luckily, her worries were for nothing, as Walsh didn't get off the phone at all, so Emma continued watching the entertainment on the jumbo screen.

When the camera switched from the dancing mascot to the much celebrated Kiss Cam, Emma knew in that moment exactly what was going to happen, because the universe hates her so much that she knows to expect the worse. She didn't even have to look over at the camera operator about twenty feet to her right to know what was coming. After the awwws from the crowd at the first couple's (an elderly couple who were wearing matching jerseys) kiss died down, the screen went black for about half a second before focusing on Emma and Walsh.

Her heart plummeted to about fifty feet below the stadium and simultaneously sped up to the speed of a jet as her worst nightmares were realized.

She didn't know whether to be grateful that Walsh hadn't noticed what was happening, thus delaying the kiss, or extremely mad that she would have to endure the stares and cheers from the entire stadium until she kissed this, for lack of a better word, monkey.

She tapped on Walsh's shoulder a few times to get his attention in order to get it over with but he pointedly ignored her, even going so far as to hold up his finger and wave her off. The cheers quickly turned to boos at her date's behavior, and Emma suddenly felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around and saw Prince-Eric-look-alike staring at her, then he nodded his head toward the jumbo-tron with one eyebrow raised to the sky.

Without giving it any more thought, or herself any more time to second guess the decision, Emma surged forward and smashed her lips against his.

The kiss quickly got out of hand and turned much more heated than initially intended. Neither were aware of the "woop"s and the whistles coming from all around them. They pulled apart reluctantly only when air became a necessity, long after the kiss cam had moved onto another couple.

"That was..." He breathed.

A throat clearing from behind Emma made both of them jump apart, as they were still resting their foreheads against each other. In a flash, she remembered her date, the kiss having obliterated all coherent thoughts. When she turned around to face him, however, he wasn't even looking at her. He was staring daggers at the man who'd been kissing the daylights out of her mere seconds earlier.

"Hey, buddy! Back off, she's _mine_!" Walsh screamed before cocking his fist and punching Prince-Eric-look-alike in the face. For his part though, her kissing partner took the punch quite well, not falling down or even stumbling.

Liam jumped up and came to his brother's aide, but he simply stood back up straight and wiped the blood that was starting to drip from his nose, and at the point Emma noticed that their little group was back on the giant screen, and the entire stadium was watching the fight. She heard some shouts of "Punch him back!" directed at her neighbor and a few "Good for you!"s directed towards her date.

Neither of the men seemed to hear their audience at all, though, and when Emma would tell this story later she would blame the two beers she'd had and the adrenaline pumping through her veins for what she did next.

However, she was just so fed up and done with this date, and at that point, not even the great seats could make her stay any longer if it meant spending one more minute with a man who just called her _his_ , as if she were his property, so she took out in her anger in a way that Mary Margaret would have some silly saying to tell her first grade students to discourage the exact behavior that Emma was now exhibiting.

Her fist connected with Walsh's jaw with a satisfyingly loud crack. Walsh stumbled back and put a hand to his face in an involuntary attempt to stop the pain.

"I am not _yours_." Emma spat through her teeth. "This 'date' is over."

Just then, security came up to their seats and promptly told Emma, Walsh, Prince-Eric-look-alike, and Prince-Eric-look-alike's brother to kindly leave the arena.

The game was enough of a blow-out that Emma didn't feel too bad about leaving the game early, and however bad she did feel about leaving the game was greatly overshadowed by relief at the horrible date being over.

Still, she couldn't get that damn kiss out of her mind. It played on a loop the entire walk out of the arena. Emma Swan did _not_ go around kissing strangers. It was probably because it's the first time she'd really been out since Henry was born and she'd just gone a little too intoxicated by the freedom, she told herself.

It was most definitely _not_ because of said stranger. It had _nothing_ to do with his ocean blue eyes or soft, full lips. Or the way the entire world disappeared when they kissed.

When they finally exited the arena into the crisp fall air, Walsh said without emotion, "You will both be hearing from my lawyer." With that, he walked away down the road.

"Wow. What a bloody wanker." Prince-Eric-look-alike chuckled, clearly not phased by Walsh's threat. "Please tell me that was just a first date, love."

"Oh yeah. And definitely the last." She returned the chuckle. "I'm Emma, by the way."

"Killian. And this is my brother, Liam." Emma shook the hands of both men. After she let go of Liam's hand, his phone rang and he excused himself to answer it. "I'm sorry about getting you kicked out of the match."

Emma rolled her eyes. "It wasn't your fault. Honestly, I wanted out the second he showed up to the date yelling at someone on the phone."

"Well, he sounds like a real Prince Charming." Killian smiled awkwardly.

"Yeah, I have a knack for picking those." She looked at her watch and saw that she still had a few hours until the babysitter expected her back, quickly starting an internal debate about whether or not to go home early. And whether or not to tell her well-meaning friends and son the truth about the date.

"I apologize if I was too forward in there." Killian says, interrupting her musings. "With the kiss."

Emma was not used to being on the receiving end of an apology, so she was not exactly sure how to respond. "Um, thank you, but I think it was me who kissed you."

Killian chuckled. "I believe it was quite... mutual."

Emma was stunned at how brazen that response was. _Is this what dating is like now?_ She was rusty on the whole flirting thing, so it took her a second to respond. However, she found herself slipping into the flirty persona she'd often adopted before having Henry quite easily. "Good to know."

Liam came back and excused himself, saying something about a girlfriend who was sick. There was a pause after Liam walked away, but before it got uncomfortable, Killian said, "Would you like to get a drink with me?"

This caught Emma off-guard. Normally, she'd say no. She probably should say no. And now she knew the harm in one date, and that one date really could be _that_ bad. However, she surprised herself by actually wanting to say yes, though. (Which in itself was already a distinction between Walsh and Killian. She hadn't wanted to say yes to Walsh, but Killian...) Despite the horrendous date she was just on. "On one condition." She said before she could overthink her decision.

"And what is that, love?" He took a step closer to her, giving her what could only be a trademark smolder.

Emma took the dare and took a step closer to him. "We go somewhere we can watch the rest of the game."

Killian's blue eyes sparkled when he smiled. "That condition I can agree to."


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you so much for all your kind reviews and for favoriting/following! They really mean the world to me! So, as promised, here is the second/final part of this story! Hope you like it!  
**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

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"So, Killian, you a big hockey fan?" Emma inquired about the man sitting next to her at the bar. The game had ended (Nothing too exciting had happened in the rest of the match) and the sports bar had mostly cleared out of the patrons who came to watch the game, so it was fairly quiet. Throughout the rest of the game at the bar, it had been apparent that while in physical attendance of the game, Killian had followed his brother's lead on when to cheer and when to boo. Separated from that influence, he seemed like a fish out of water.

He sniggered before responding, "It's bad form to poke fun, Swan."

She put on a mock serious face before being unable to avoid a laugh escaping her lips. "Sorry."

"Alright, lass. Same question, then. It's clear you know more about this sport than I."

She took a swig of her rum to end the rest of her giggles. "I grew up all over Boston and Minnesota. Hockey is basically a religion there so it was impossible not to learn the basics. This was the first professional game I've ever been to, though. So, you're not a hockey expert. Do you prefer a different sport?"

"Aye. I love sailing."

That piqued Emma's interest. She could tell how passionate Killian was about sailing with the way he smiled and how his eyes lit up. Wanting to keep him talking about this passion, she asked, "What do you like about it?"

Killian took a minute to formulate a proper response when something at the bar behind Emma caught his attention. His eyes grew to the size of saucers, which made them even bluer, something which Emma would have believed impossible. While distracted by staring at the impossible color of his eyes, Emma didn't notice the shock on his face until he exclaimed, "Bloody hell."

Emma turned around curiously. "What?"

And then she saw "what". It was her face. And Killian's. And Walsh's. On ESPN. "Oh my god." She muttered, too shocked to form a complete sentence. ESPN was currently showing the fight in all its glory. She saw her eyes blown-wide and her panicked face as the Kiss Cam zeroed in on her. She saw herself poke Walsh's shoulder and him brush her off, and then she saw Killian tap her shoulder. She saw the kiss. The kiss that had destroyed her. The kiss that she'd been thinking about repeating ever since it happened. Seeing it playing out on television, she saw that the length and the intensity was _really_ not appropriate for a public sporting event. It had felt so quick in the moment, Killian's lips leaving hers far too soon. She grimaced as they pulled away and Walsh shouted something at Killian and then punched him. She saw herself punch Walsh and finally security came and escorted them out. It cut back to the commenters who were having a good laugh at the tape.

The remaining patrons at the bar noticed their reaction to the clips, and immediately recognized Emma and Killian as the same couple. "Let's go, love." Killian declared, but before Emma could even get her coat back on, she noticed the flash of several camera phones.

"Seriously?" She exclaimed in exasperation. Now even more photos of her were going to be on ESPN and god knows where else.

They unceremoniously left the bar and walked into the street. They didn't say anything until they were block away, when they both broke out into laughter. "That might have been the most surreal experience of my life. Strangers actually wanted a picture of us! And we're on ESPN!"

After catching his breath, Killian replied, "Wow. That was certainly... something."

"Yeah, definitely something." Emma found herself falling into step next to Killian as they walked down the street. "Where were we?"

"I honestly don't recall, love." He admitted. "How about you tell me how you ended up with that wanker tonight?"

Emma laughed in exasperation, because now that it was over, she actually could laugh about it. "He sold me some furniture and asked me out. I initially said no, but my friends pushed me into it."

He nodded his head. "Over zealous friends. I get that."

"You, too?" She inquired.

"Oh yeah. They mean well, though." He paused. "At least I think they do."

She laughed. "Oh mine don't mean well, that's for sure." As she walked along, her phone fell from her pocket and she bent down to pick it up, and in doing so she noticed the time. "Oh my god, I should have been home half an hour ago!"

Emma didn't miss the look of disappointment on Killian's face. "May I walk you home?"

She knew that she should say no. She'd known Killian for only a few hours, and already it was dangerously close to being just too _much_. The past few hours were the most fun she'd had away from Henry in a long time. Killian was sweet and funny and cute and nice. She could see it very quickly turning into _something_. And Emma Swan most certainly did not do _something_ s. She was strictly a get-in-get-out girl, even before Henry. And even more so after Henry. She had him to think about now. Killian was waiting patiently for an answer, so Emma confessed, "I don't know."

Killian nodded his understanding. "Whatever you are comfortable with, love."

Emma didn't understand the look on his face. It was... sincere? Compassionate? She wasn't quite sure what it was. She'd never seen a man look at her that way. "It's not that I don't want to spend more time with you. It's my son. I don't make a habit of introducing him to guys I just met."

Killian's brows went up in surprise, but that gave way soon to comprehension. "Ah. I understand. How about this, then. Will you go out with me again? A proper date?"

His blues eyes looked into her green ones, full of hope that she might say yes, but also fear that she'd say no.

Words had never been Emma Swan's strength. She always preferred to let her actions speak for themselves. So, she simply smiled and took a step closer to him. He seemed to catch up immediately and met her in the middle. Their lips met in a kiss that was much more sweet than the one in the arena. Emma still felt the kiss all the way to her toes and it was still passionate, but this one felt real. The kiss in the arena started as show, but ended up being something very real. This one started real. It was a promise that yes, she would go out with him again.


End file.
